The Day After
by breadfly
Summary: A series of drabbles, tracing the lives of everyone in the aftermath of a war. Can there be beginnings after everything has ended? Multiple pairings. UPDATED: Temari and Kiba have different definitions of their job. Rated for sexual themes.
1. Lee: No More Kick

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

* * *

The Day After

_ (i) No More Kick_

"Is that all you can do, boy, fight?" The bald, heavy man took off his glasses and wiped them absent-mindedly with a corner of his shirt. Replacing them, he fixed a pair of weary eyes on the shinobi's thick, dark eyebrows.

"Very well," The boy replied, nodding earnestly, "You should see my..."

"Son, you're applying as a school teacher."

"I'm also... very good with children," he quipped quickly.

"Well why didn't you say so?!"

"I'm better at fighting," the shinobi insisted. He looked around the room. It was a cheerful, messy space; a stack of unmarked worksheets in a corner weighed down by a clutter of random items - wilting flowers, coffee cups, aromatic candles. Probably gifts, he thought.

"Well, i'll just ignore that," the man said, exasperated, "Here!" He tore a slip of paper from a thick folder, "We're short of staff anyway. This is your timetable. Report for work at seven tomorrow! You may leave."

"Odo-san?"

"Yes, yes, what is it Lee?"

"Is there physical edu..."

"Out! Out!"

And that was that.


	2. Ino: Wilting Point

_(ii) Wilting Point _

"You see, after all that, she ended up just like me!" The Yamanaka dinner was a tense, bitter affair, "A florist! All that money... paying the training fees, buying that ridiculous gear..."

"Yuki, please..."

"Inoichi! Don't you dare interrupt...I blame you!"

Ino stared miserably at her food; a shapeless lump of rice and two coloured piles of mock meat. She gave her father a dour glance, which he returned. She has my eyes, he thought, absent-mindedly, But her mother's lips.

Those lips were trembling now, "If not for the Nara's son..."

"Don't bring Shikamaru into this!" Inoichi snapped, throwing down his fork as if the comment had been a personal wound, "I cannot imagine how it must feel to lose a child." And, in a calmer voice, he said, "You should be glad she's still sitting there."

Somewhere in the room a clocked chimed and Ino grew an eternity older. _Why must they always talk about me like I'm not here_, she thought. She stood up to leave, her dinner untouched. She looked at both her parents; they were avoiding each other's eyes as well as hers.

"I'll be in my room," she said, "Dyeing the carnations."

They let her go.


	3. Kankuro: No Strings Attached

_(iii) No Strings Attached_

"There's something beneath the sand," One of the diggers yelled, dabbing his wet brows with an even wetter cloth.

"Is it valuable? Is it alive?"

His companion skittered across the sand dune and peered into the gaping hole. They had been digging for two days straight and had found nothing. Yet.

"I don't know. Looks like a...person from here. Tomo, can you give me a hand." A few minutes of heaving and two broken nails later, they lifted the heavy, shrouded form into the sunlight and laid it upon the hard desert floor.

Holding a breath, the first digger - a thick set, hairy man - removed the shroud with a flourish.

"Why, its a young girl!" He gasped. The girl had soft pink hair and strange markings on her cheeks.

"Well, don't just sit there, Ido!" The man called Tomo quickly placed a finger on her forehead and gestured for Ido to prepare water. He felt chakra flow through the girl -a perfectly regular pattern - and frowned, "No, it's not a child... it's a puppet!"

He peered over the girl, "She's pretty."

"What's a puppet doing buried here in the middle of the desert?" Ido wondered, brushing dust of its face. Her features were soft. He realised she had been made in likeness of a real human being.

Suddenly, the puppet's eyes flung open. Ido jumped back.

"It's mouth... is moving. Tomo, it's trying to say something!" He dripped a bit of liquid onto the puppet's lips, loosening the joints around its mouth. They creaked open awkwardly and, from within, a light, feminine voice whispered:

"Mama...Sakura?"

"Tomo, it said Sakura!"

"So it did. Who is Sakura?" Ido asked, rhetorically. He exchanged a look with Tomo and poured more water onto its lips.

"Papa...Papa..."

The two of them held their breaths.

"Kan..Kankuro." The puppet's lids fell shut again and its mouth froze, leaving a little gap in the shape of a smile.

"Kankuro, the Legendary Puppeteer of Sunakagure," Tomo mouthed, "The Hidden Village that once stood here, legend says, a long, long time ago."

Ido stared at the girl, transfixed, "He must have made this...why bury it in the sand?"

Tomo shrugged, "He must have hid her when the enemies arrived but never returned to retrieve her." He folded the girl's arms and carefully picked her up, "Probably worth a fortune... we're in luck!"

They gazed back into the hole. Funny, he thought, absent-mindedly, _Papa...Mama..._


	4. Hinata: Taste of Your Own

_ (iv) Taste of Your Own  
_

A touch of _dokudami_, a dash of _biwa_, two leaves of dried _kaki_: Hinata sealed the herbs into a small cloth bag and placed it carefully onto a shelf, dusting her hands on the front of her apron.

A sweet, strong smell diffused from one of the pots on the stove and the lady smiled, walking over to give it a quick stir. She stole a glance out the window; it was a beautiful, bracing morning, the sky a soft cloudless blue, dew thick on the undersides of leaves.

This was life now: slow and predictable, like the thick brew of fresh, bitter herbs that were coming to a boil. The days of fear and fighting were over; no more Kiba with his snarky grin or Shino with no grin at all. She was beginning to like this kind of life; perhaps she was getting old.

There was a noisy group of children on the field outside, playing _shinobi_. They had homemade headbands and wooden kunai. Now and then, they'd even come into her shop to buy herbs for play-medpacs.

She never let them. Medicine isn't child's play, she'd say sternly.

Then again, she thought, neither is _shinobi_.

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Note: _Dokudami_, _biwa_ and _kaki_ are Japanese herbs. 


	5. TemariKiba: Beauty and the Beast

_(v) Beauty and the Beast_

"The difference," he attempted to explain - raising his voice above the cacophony of groans - "Is that I'm on a _mission_ whereas _you_ are doing this voluntarily."

"Oh puh-leeze, Inuzuka," The girl laughed harshly, taking a drag of a well-bitten cigarette, "You really think there's a Hidden Village of Bangs? God, you're even cuter than I thought."

"I don't know about _you_, but I'm getting _paid_!"

It was more than Temari could take. The girl erupted in shrieks quite unbecoming of her slender, nubile form and reached across the bed to take the boy's cheeks, markings and all, firmly in one hand. "Come on, tell me - what's the _mission objective_."

"Let go," Kiba growled, trying to keep his eyes on her face, "I'm suppose to lay every chick that comes up here."

"Uh-huh. I know that part."

"And get important information!"

"This is rich."

"I swear...i'm suppose to learn about _positions_." He finished, avoiding her fierce grin, "Y'know... like where the _platoons_ go..." He stopped in mid-sentence as a cold foot pressed itself lightly against his chest.

"What you gonna do now, soldier? This is new."

Kiba blushed furiously and pushed the foot away. Why didn't girls ever _listen_ to him? "One day, I'm going to win that war. You'd better hope you're not against me, woman."

"Oh, believe you me, I don't want to be against you," Temari turned away from him, the moonlight from an open window washing her bare skin a pale, luminiscent blue.

She could feel his eyes on her back and shivered slightly despite herself. "Look around you, Kiba," she said, softly, "You've already lost." There was no reply, no sound - save the _crescendo _and _diminuendo_ of hell.


End file.
